Miami Dade County madness, Parkland DRI headed to the County Commission, by gimleteye

In the past 48 hours, Natacha Seijas (VNS) killed the recommendation by fellow county commissioner Katy Sorenson to stop spending taxpayer dollars on the county lawsuit defending past approvals to move the Urban Development Boundary (2007) for Lowe's and for a new proposed development at Kendall Drive. That's the influence we helpfully outlined for readers, recently, in our post on the blood feud between Seijas and former county commission chair Gwen Margolis.

The real issue coming up on December 18th at the Miami Dade County Commission, during a public hearing whether or not to "transmit" to the state of Florida the application by Lennar, Sergio Pino, Ed Easton, and Ramon Rasco, organizer of the Homestead Air Force Base fiasco, is: why in the face of the worst economic conditions since the Depression would the county commission approve a massive new development edging toward the Everglades? There are two recent editorials worth reading in consideration of the answer, if you have the patience: the first is from David Brooks, the conservative columnist for The New York Times, who echoes the concern that the massive fiscal stimulus planned by the Obama administration must not simply plow more hundreds of billions into the failed model of economic growth (in this case, represented by developments like Parkland). The second editorial is by Florida Treasure Coast Palm columnist Kenric Ward, "Growth binge gives Florida a hangover." If you care about Florida, read both these fine editorials.


December 9, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
This Old House

By DAVID BROOKS
The 1980s and 1990s made up the era of the great dispersal. Forty-three million people moved every year, and basically they moved outward — from inner-ring suburbs to far-flung exurbs on the metro fringe. For example, the population of metropolitan Pittsburgh declined by 8 percent in those years, but the developed land area of the Pittsburgh area sprawled outward by 43 percent.

If you asked people in that age of go-go suburbia what they wanted in their new housing developments, they often said they wanted a golf course. But the culture has changed. If you ask people today what they want, they’re more likely to say coffee shops, hiking trails and community centers.

People overshot the mark. They moved to the exurbs because they wanted space and order. But once there, they found that they were missing community and social bonds. So in the past years there has been a new trend. Meeting places are popping up across the suburban landscape.

There are restaurant and entertainment zones, mixed-use streetscape malls, suburban theater districts, farmers’ markets and concert halls. In addition, downtown areas in places like Charlotte and Dallas are reviving as many people move back into the city in search of human contact. Joel Kotkin, the author of “The New Geography,” calls this clustering phenomenon the New Localism.

Barack Obama has said that he would start an infrastructure project that will dwarf Dwight Eisenhower’s highway program. If, indeed, we are going to have a once-in-a-half-century infrastructure investment, it would be great if the program would build on today’s emerging patterns. It would be great if Obama’s spending, instead of just dissolving into the maw of construction, would actually encourage the clustering and leave a legacy that would be visible and beloved 50 years from now.

To take advantage of the growing desire for community, the Obama plan would have to do two things. First, it would have to create new transportation patterns. The old metro design was based on a hub-and-spoke system — a series of highways that converged on an urban core. But in an age of multiple downtown nodes and complicated travel routes, it’s better to have a complex web of roads and rail systems.

Second, the Obama stimulus plan could help localities create suburban town squares. Many communities are trying to build focal points. The stimulus plan could build charter schools, pre-K centers, national service centers and other such programs around new civic hubs.

This kind of stimulus would be consistent with Obama’s campaign, which was all about bringing Americans together in new ways. It would help maintain the social capital that’s about to be decimated by the economic downturn.

But alas, there’s no evidence so far that the Obama infrastructure plan is attached to any larger social vision. In fact, there is a real danger that the plan will retard innovation and entrench the past.

In a stimulus plan, the first job is to get money out the door quickly. That means you avoid anything that might require planning and creativity. You avoid anything that might require careful implementation or novel approaches. The quickest thing to do is simply throw money at things that already exist.

Sure enough, the Obama stimulus plan, at least as it has been sketched out so far, is notable for its lack of creativity. Obama wants to put more computers in classrooms, an old idea with dubious educational merit. He also proposes a series of ideas that are good but not exactly transformational: refurbishing the existing power grid; fixing the oldest roads and bridges; repairing schools; and renovating existing government buildings to make them more energy efficient.

This is the federal version of “This Old House.” And this is before the stimulus money gets diverted, as it inevitably will, to refurbish old companies. The auto bailout could eventually swallow $125 billion. After that, it could be the airlines and so on.

It’s also before the spending drought that is bound to follow the spending binge. Because we’re going to be spending $1 trillion now on existing structures and fading industries, there will be less or nothing in 2010 or 2011 for innovative transport systems, innovative social programs or anything else.

Before the recession hit, we were enjoying a period of urban and suburban innovation. We could have been on the verge of a transportation revolution. It looks as if the Obama infrastructure plan may freeze that change, not fuel it.

And not to get all Rod McKuen on you or anything, but the larger point is this: Social change has a natural rhythm. The season of prosperity gives way to the season of economic scarcity, and out of the winter of recession, new growth has room to emerge. A stimulus package may be necessary, but unless designed with care, its main effect will be to prop up the drying husks of the fall.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company



Kenric Ward: Growth binge gives Florida a hangover

Developers' spiel no longer stimulating; local officials should take a new position
By Kenric Ward
Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The development industry is the Viagra of Florida. At least it used to be.

Even in the depths of a sunken real-estate market, the shills keep begging for more stimulation.

"It's time for Florida to promote itself: 'Hey, folks, we're still here and the winter

weather is great, so come on down and take advantage of the best buyers' market in years!"' Vero Beach developer Richard Bialosky gushed recently in the Press Journal.

Charlie Crist, one of the homebuilders' most supine handmaidens, sees only rosy skies ahead. Predicting an imminent end to the economic doldrums, the governor declared, "Florida will probably come out of it first. I mean, the sun always comes up in Florida first."

Alas, unbridled optimism and the same old hucksterism will not change the reality that Florida's growth machine has grotesquely overbuilt this state. Amid mounting foreclosures and unsold home inventories, no amount of stimulus seems to be working.

The St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald recently published a report titled "Growth won't pay the bills in Florida." The 2,000-word dispatch detailed how the floundering real-estate sector has dragged down the entire state economy, resulting in multibillion-dollar budget deficits and a collapsing tax base.

PORT ST. LUCIE BLUES

Heavily dependent on home construction, Florida isn't merely exposed to hurricanes. The faster our peninsula grew, the harder it was bound to fall.

Take Port St. Lucie, for example. That's what the Times/Herald writers did when they recounted: "Fueled by low home prices that lured people up the coast from heavily congested, high-cost South Florida, the city's population had soared by 133 percent by 2007.

"Fast-forward to 2008: New construction is down 70 percent, unemployment is at 10 percent, and one in every 113 homes is in foreclosure."

The current carnage is the legacy of builders who were aided and abetted by a rubber-stamping local government. Now the public is paying, big time. Property values have fallen below pre-2003 levels, and city officials must tap dwindling tax funds to pay for the upkeep of abandoned homes.

Port St. Lucie — the self-proclaimed "City for All Ages" — epitomizes the false promise of development, planned or otherwise. So much for the shibboleth that growth equals prosperity.

In the go-go days, growth degraded quality of life, polluted the environment, worsened congestion, crowded schools and increased crime. Public officials played along because growth expanded the size and scope of government.

If the only casualties of the current downturn were national builders taking a hit on their profit margins, or speculators losing their inflated equity, this bust would be just the cost of doing business. But the collateral damage is so much worse.

Today, John Q. Homeowner is upside-down on his house if he's lived in Florida for less than five years. Longer-term residents are simply stuck in their dwellings, unable to sell while the state sits on a record inventory of about 300,000 unsold homes. Ultimately, taxes will have to go up.

"This recession is not only going to be bad for us. It's going to be worse than the nation's," University of Florida economist David Denslow told the Times/Herald. Why? "We got overbuilt."

WHO STANDS FOR CITIZENS?

Citizens should expect better from their elected representatives. Instead of catering to footloose developers and real-estate shysters, the first priority of local government is to preserve sustainable, cohesive communities. That may mean just saying "no" to growth, or at least enforcing tough zoning regulations that curb bottom feeders and contain sprawl. Simply erecting more rooftops for all has proved to be a horrific house of cards.

And beware of those who now prescribe "smart-growth" and "economic development" initiatives to rejuvenate things. St. Lucie County has the most business-friendly agenda on the Treasure Coast, and it has the highest jobless rates, the most crime, the biggest budget shortfalls and, by far, the worst schools.

If growth were the key to prosperity, everyone would be descending on Miami. But people are moving out of the state in record numbers. The more the hucksters hustled, the less fun it became.

ken.ward@scripps.com

HOUSING SINKS ECONOMY

Speaking of Florida's shaky real-estate model, state Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink says, "We can't rely any more on attracting fixed-income retirees from up north and selling them cheap land. Those days are over." The following statistics prove her point.

•Florida led the nation in job growth in 2005. Now leads nation in job losses, and unemployment is at a 15-year high.

•Florida's gross domestic product was among the national leaders in 2005. Now ranks 47th.

•After five years of double-digit increases in housing starts, Florida is second in the nation in foreclosure filings (behind California), with 440,000 homeowners in default.

AND STILL THEY BUILD

Though mired in the worst housing market in decades, homebuilders keep building.

•On the Treasure Coast, 172 new single-family homes were started in the third quarter — two every day. That's on top of the 1,428 new homes still sitting unsold and vacant in the three-county market.

•The Indian River County Commission this fall approved a planned 990-home development stretching across the urban service boundary. Construction timetable unknown.

St. Petersburg Times, Miami Herald, Metro-Study


© 2008 Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers